Metered dose inhalers (MDI) and multidose powder inhalers (MPDI) are commonly used for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and asthma. Currently, analytical tools to monitor particle/particle and particle/surface interaction within MDI and MPDI at the macro-scale do not exist. A simple tool capable of measuring such interactions would ultimately enable quality control of MDI and MDPI, producing remarkable benefits for the pharmaceutical industry and the users of inhalers. In this paper, we have investigated whether a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) could become such a tool...

The cellulose synthase complex (CSC) exhibits a 6-fold symmetry and is known as a "rosette". Each CSC is believed to contain between 18-24 CESA proteins that each synthesise an individual glucan chain. These chains form the microfibrils that confer the remarkable structural properties of cellulose. At least 3 different classes of CESA proteins are essential to form the CSC. However, while organisation of the CSC determines microfibril structure, how individual CESA proteins are organised within the CSC remains unclear...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of a tuberculosis (TB) educational intervention (EI) on change in adolescent student knowledge and participation in a TB prevention program. METHODS: From 2/2013-5/2015, students from 2 high schools in Houston, TX participated. The 25-min EI discussed TB bacteriology, epidemiology, symptoms, and indications for TB testing/treatment. Students completed pre- and post-quizzes. Immediately after the EI, students were invited to participate in voluntary TB risk-factor screening, testing and treatment...

BACKGROUND: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are one of the most troublesome complications after foot and ankle surgery. Previous literature has emphasized the significance of appropriate timing of antibiotic prophylaxis. However, the optimal timing of antibiotic prophylaxis for SSI prevention is still inconclusive. Our study aimed to investigate the optimal timing of antibiotic administration and to elucidate the risk factors for SSIs in foot and ankle surgery. METHODS: A retrospective review of 1933 foot and ankle procedures in 1632 patients from January 1, 2011, through August 31, 2015, was performed...

Only a tiny fraction of the data and metadata produced by an fMRI study is finally conveyed to the community. This lack of transparency not only hinders the reproducibility of neuroimaging results but also impairs future meta-analyses. In this work we introduce NIDM-Results, a format specification providing a machine-readable description of neuroimaging statistical results along with key image data summarising the experiment. NIDM-Results provides a unified representation of mass univariate analyses including a level of detail consistent with available best practices...

OBJECTIVE: To review the legal issues concerning family members' access to information when patients are in the ICU. DATA SOURCES: U.S. Code, U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, and state legislative codes. DATA EXTRACTION: Relevant legal statutes and regulations were identified and reviewed by the two attorney authors (L. F., M. A. V.). STUDY SELECTION: Not applicable. DATA SYNTHESIS: Review by all coauthors...

The realization of metal NPs with bimetallic character and distinct composition for specific catalytic applications is an intensively studied field. Due to the synergy between metals, most of the bimetallic particles exhibit unique properties, only hardly provided by the individual monometallic counterparts. However, as small sized NPs possess high surface energy, agglomeration during catalytic reactions is favored. Sufficient stabilization can be achieved by confinement of NPs in porous support materials. In this sense, especially MOFs gained a lot of attention during the last years, however, encapsulation of bimetallic species remains challenging...

Competency-based supervision of trainees has recently come to the forefront of behavior analytic practice; however, there are minimal data to support the effectiveness of various supervision practices on trainee outcomes. Accordingly, this paper is intended to spark further discussion and research activity regarding the supervision of those seeking to become Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA). We present a practice model and considerations for supervising applied behavior analytic trainees consistent with the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) Supervisor Training Curriculum Outline (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2012b), the Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2014), and extant literature from behavior analysis and related fields...

Methods for detecting imprinting effects have been developed primarily for autosomal markers. However, no method is available in the literature to test for imprinting effects on X chromosome. Therefore, it is necessary to suggest methods for detecting such imprinting effects. In this article, the parental-asymmetry test on X chromosome (XPAT) is first developed to test for imprinting for qualitative traits in the presence of association, based on family trios each with both parents and their affected daughter...

Genome-wide association studies have identified >50 common variants associated with kidney function, but these variants do not fully explain the variation in eGFR. We performed a two-stage meta-analysis of associations between genotypes from the Illumina exome array and eGFR on the basis of serum creatinine (eGFRcrea) among participants of European ancestry from the CKDGen Consortium (nStage1: 111,666; nStage2: 48,343). In single-variant analyses, we identified single nucleotide polymorphisms at seven new loci associated with eGFRcrea (PPM1J, EDEM3, ACP1, SPEG, EYA4, CYP1A1, and ATXN2L; PStage1<3...

Ph-like acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a high-risk subtype of ALL in children. There are limited and conflicted data on the incidence and prognosis of Ph-like ALL in adults. Patients with newly-diagnosed B-ALL who received frontline chemotherapy at MD Anderson Cancer Center underwent gene expression profiling of leukemic cells to identify Ph-like ALL. Patients received hyper-CVAD (80%) or augmented-BFM (20%) regimen. Of 148 patients, 33.1% had Ph-like, 31.1% had Ph+, and 35.8% had other B-ALL subtypes (B-other)...

Estrogen replacement therapy in Turner syndrome should theoretically mimic the physiology of healthy girls. The objective of this study was to describe final height and bone mineral density (BMD) in a group of 17 Turner syndrome patients (group E) who started their ethinyl estradiol therapy with an ultra-low dosage (1-5 ng/kg/day) from 9.8˜13.7 years. The subjects in group E had been treated with GH 0.35 mg/kg/week since the average age of 7.4 years. The 30 subjects in group L, one of the historical groups, were given comparable doses of GH, and conjugated estrogen 0...

INTRODUCTION: There is limited evaluation of clinical and theoretical claims that sexual thoughts of children and coercing others facilitate sexual offending. The nature of these thoughts (what they contain) also is unknown. AIM: To examine the relation between child or coercive sexual thoughts and sexual offending and to determine the nature of these thoughts and any differences among sexual offending (SO), non-sexual offending (NSO), and non-offending (NO) men...

In culture isolated bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (more precisely termed skeletal stem cells, SSCs) spontaneously differentiate into fibroblasts, preventing the growth of large numbers of multipotent SSCs for use in regenerative medicine. However, the mechanisms that regulate the expansion of SSCs, while maintaining multipotency and preventing fibroblastic differentiation are poorly understood. Major hurdles to understanding how the maintenance of SSCs is regulated are (a) SSCs isolated from bone marrow are heterogeneous populations with different proliferative characteristics and (b) a lack of tools to investigate SSC number expansion and multipotency...

Elastic wave scattering is used to study polycrystalline media for a wide range of applications. Received signals, which include scattering from the randomly oriented grains comprising the polycrystal, contain information from which useful microstructural parameters may often be inferred. Recently, a mode-converted diffuse ultrasonic scattering model was developed for evaluating the scattered response of a transverse wave from an incident longitudinal wave in a polycrystalline medium containing equiaxed single-phase grains with cubic elastic symmetry...

PURPOSE: To examine the maxillary length of euploid and aneuploid fetuses in the second and third trimester. METHODS: Retrospective study utilizing stored 2D images of second and third trimester fetal profiles obtained at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. The length of the maxilla was measured as a straight line between the anterior ventral and posterior ventral edges of the maxilla. RESULTS: The study population consisted of 347 euploid fetuses and 122, 36, 5, 8, and 4 fetuses with trisomy 21, 18, and 13, Turner syndrome, and triploidy...